Ransom Riggs
Selling out: great actors in terrible movies
by Ransom Riggs - February 1, 2007 - 2:11 PM

Any b-lister can make a bad movie just for the paycheck. But it takes real talent to achieve true sell-out status — as some of our best actors have demonstrated. Here are some of our favorite cash-ins from movie history, culled from a list of 25 by Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Nashawaty:

Buster Keaton in Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
keaton.gifDuring the silent era, Keaton was arguably a greater comedic talent than Charlie Chaplin, but the introduction of sound made him obsolete. By the LBJ years, this genius was reduced to taking any fluff film that would have him in exchange for a payday. Take this Annette Funicello hormone-apalooza, which features Keaton wearing his signature porkpie hat and deadpan expression — at least until a bikini’d bombshell crosses his path, when his eyes bug out like the world’s oldest living horndog. A-oo-gah! How depressing.

Peter O’Toole in Club Paradise (1986)
Some actors see movie shoots as little more than paid vacations. But even by those lax standards, O’Toole’s appearance in this Robin Williams reggae romp is particularly painful to watch. The tagline to this stink bomb says it all: “The vacation you’ll never forget — no matter how hard you try.”

Richard Burton in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Looking like he just came off he world’s longest (and sweatiest) whisky bender, Burton plays a Vatican investigator charged with reopening the Regan MacNeil case. Burton’s soldier of Christ battles a ridiculous demon named Pazuzu and is even forced to wear a snug safari outfit.

Orson Welles in Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Dig this voice cast: Judd Nelson, Casey Kasem, Eric Idle, Leonard Nimoy — and legendary director of Citizen Kane Orson Welles. He wields his gargantuan baritone as the voice of Unicron, a ravenous robot-planet that devours everything in its path. Yes, his last role was a big, fat joke.
Unicronplanet.jpg

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Comments (12)

  1. There is nothing remotely embarrassing about being Unicron. Nothing.

    posted by Amanda on 2-1-2007 at 2:50 pm

  2. I don’t think of it as selling out. When you’re an actor you take the jobs you can get. If you’re an actor without an acting job, you’re just un-employed.
    Besides, we are STILL talking about these roles so at least it kept them in print.
    And I happen to LIKE “Beach Blanket Bingo”! :-)

    posted by Sheldon Siegel on 2-1-2007 at 3:09 pm

  3. I agree with Amanda. I mean you really can’t top being a planet eater! A planet that eats other planets is great but if that wasn’t enough they take it to the next level and make the planet eating planet a robot! Who would be able to pass that up?!?!?! I mean I am stunned that Tom Selleck didn’t take the role! Could you imagine Magnum P.I. floating around the galaxy gobbling up planets!

    posted by Jarred Hanson on 2-1-2007 at 3:27 pm

  4. Club Paradise is one of the best bad movies ever made. A classic! I think I can quote the script scene by scene.

    posted by David on 2-1-2007 at 3:31 pm

  5. I will brook no sass in re: Welles as Unicron.

    posted by Junie on 2-1-2007 at 5:15 pm

  6. Sir Lawrence Olivier in “The Jazz Singer.” If you can watch him rend his coat and whine “Aye. haf. no. son!” without wetting yourself, then you are legally blind.

    posted by Jill on 2-2-2007 at 3:09 am

  7. I’m with Junie! Don’t ever say no ill word about Transformers: The Movie!

    Around the same time O’Toole did Club Paradise, he did The Last Emperor, so he’s forgiven. But barely.

    posted by Lyssa on 2-2-2007 at 8:46 am

  8. “I’m sick of the mutha-f***ing snakes on this mutha-f***ing plane!”

    I hope Samuel L Jackson made it onto that list somewhere. Talk about someone with a good career throwing it in the toilet.

    posted by Michael on 2-2-2007 at 8:52 am

  9. I have no idea what this means, but I love the way it sounds. Best comment ever.

    # Junie Says:
    February 1st, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    I will brook no sass in re: Welles as Unicron.

    posted by Jason on 2-2-2007 at 2:25 pm

  10. Thanks for spitting on my happy memories of being a little kid sitting in the theater watching the Transformers movie. “A big joke”, eh?

    :-P to you, buddy.

    posted by Andrew on 2-4-2007 at 12:08 am

  11. What about Gene Kelly in Xanadu with ONJ
    in the eighties…just terrible

    posted by Mark on 2-8-2007 at 2:07 pm

  12. Bust Keaton crashed and burned long before the talkies. He had a bad drinking problem and family that wanted in on his sucess, but not contributing anything substancial.

    He started doing remakes of his better works using family instead of other actors and his reputation was ruined.

    posted by Fodder on 2-8-2007 at 8:04 pm

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